The instant invention relates to the building construction industry and particularly to the construction of building roofs using a technique in which wide, relatively narrow consecutive sections of the roof, having a support truss along one edge, are consecutively raised and placed in position against the last section that was put in place, so that each section has a truss along one edge, with the other edge being supported by the truss of the previous section of the roof which was installed. Roof sections are in this fashion laid consecutively, each one being attached to the previously installed section until the entire roof, or at least a very wide swath of the roof, has been completed.
When roofs are constructed in this way, each roof section is very wide laterally, relatively narrow, and is quite unwieldy. The wide section is engaged by a forklift which passes its forks beneath the truss, which is on the side of the section toward the forklift, with the ends of the forks having some type of spacer to reach up to the level of the roof section, with a wide spanner bar passing across the spacers to stabilize the section. Because the section of the roof is so wide, and the forks engage beneath the truss which is several feet below the level of the main roof section, the operation is very unstable and somewhat dangerous. The laterally extended length of the roof section has a large moment arm around the forklift, and the instability is aggravated by the fact that main portion of the roof, that is the horizontal roof section, is spaced several feet above the forklift forks because of the need to engage the forks beneath the truss.
Additionally, there is only minimal control of the remote edge of the roof section by the front ends of the forks, which support the spacers, which in turn support a relatively short spanner beam that supports the far edge of the roof section.
There is a need for a rack which mounts on a forklift that would pass through the upper portion of the truss, with tangs supporting the roof section at multiple points along its length, with the tangs being rotatably adjustable about a transverse axis to accurately, horizontally orient the roof section, and create the ability to more positively engage it as it is being positioned.